World News Quick Take

AGENCIES

■ IndiaImpotent patient kills doctor

An angry patient gunned down his doctor for failing to treat him for sexual impotency, police said yesterday. The "sexologist," Rajesh Abbot, died at the scene in New Delhi on Sunday after the patient, Javed Ali, 21, pumped 13 bullets into his body, police said. Officers believe that Abbot, who was treating Ali for the last two years, was a quack who administered fake medicines. "Ali was enraged that the fake drugs had made him lose his remaining sexual prowess and ruined his life," said SS Yadav of the Mandir Marg police station. Police arrested Ali soon after the shooting.

■ Philippines

Gunmen kill top communist

Three gunmen riding a motorcycle shot dead a communist leader facing rebellion charges for his role in an alleged plot to oust President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, officials said on Monday. Sotero Llamas, 55, was attacked in the central town of Tabaco, 550km southeast of Manila, and was declared dead on arrival at a nearby hospital, a senior regional police official said. State prosecutors filed rebellion charges this month against Llamas and 40 other leaders of the communist movement for an alleged conspiracy to oust Arroyo in February. Llamas was a member of the central committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines.

■ India

Vegetarians in food fight

More than 50 passengers refused to disembark from an Air India plane at the New Delhi airport on Sunday in a row over food, a newspaper reported yesterday. At least 55 vegetarian passengers on the flight from Kuala Lumpur stayed in their seats at Indira Gandhi International Airport for an hour after the aircraft landed, angry at being forced to go hungry because the cabin crew offered only non-vegetarian meals on the four-and-a-half-hour flight, the Times of India reported. The airline blamed a travel agency for not marking their food preference while booking their tickets.

■ China

Toxic dumplings for sale

China yesterday warned consumers to be wary of eating dumplings served during the Dragon Boat Festival, saying they may be poisonous. The glutinous rice dumplings, or zongzi, are wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves and shaped like pyramids, but some unscrupulous manufacturers are using copper-based chemicals to keep the leaves green, the China Daily said. "The leaves dyed by copper sulphate or copper chloride contain metal elements which will penetrate into the zongzi and cause great damage to the health," a food expert was quoted as saying.

■ Nepal

Naked sherpa stirs uproar

The head of the Nepal Mountaineering Association urged the government on Saturday to take action against a sherpa who reportedly stripped on top of Mount Everest. The Himalayan Times had reported on Friday that the Nepali climbing guide, whose name it gave as Lakpa Tharke, stood naked for three minutes in freezing conditions on the summit of the world's highest peak. If confirmed, he would be the first person known to have stripped atop Everest. Ang Tshering Sherpa, head of Nepal's top mountaineering body, said he could not confirm that the incident had happened. "But if he did it, it is very shocking because Sagarmatha is the goddess mother," he said, using the mountain's Nepali name and referring to a belief that the mountain is sacred.

■ IranFusion research starts

The government said yesterday it had conducted research into nuclear fusion, a process that carries the promise of clean, inexhaustible supplies of energy but one that triggers the destructive power of the hydrogen bomb. It gave no details on the fusion research program and it was not clear why the government had decided to announce the research now. But it appeared to be part of the country's policy of defying world calls for it to cease uranium enrichment as a guarantee that it was not trying to build a nuclear weapons. Iran says its nuclear program is designed only for energy production.